2001: A Space Odyssey

Film/Video

Few films have informed the zeitgeist as convincingly as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kubrick’s epic fantasia took Arthur C. Clarke’s original sci-fi story—tracing human consciousness from its dawn to its first encounters with extraterrestrial intelligence—as the basis for a genuine visual tour de force unlike anything seen in movies before or since. Both slyly comic and truly chilling, it’s also notable for the way its nominal stars (Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood) are utterly upstaged by the selfless, ever-obliging, tragic HAL. (141 mins., 70mm)